


we are the gambit

by afrocurl, ninemoons42



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Birthday, Chess, Emotionally Crippled Erik Is Fun To Read, Erik is a darling, First Meetings, Gaming, Honestly Charles What Are You Thinking, M/M, Misanthropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-27
Updated: 2013-03-27
Packaged: 2017-12-06 16:59:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/738008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afrocurl/pseuds/afrocurl, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neither Erik nor Charles could ever be accused of being social; each of them hides from the world in different ways. They make an exception for each other, for a limited definition of exception.</p><p>Then one of them asks for an actual meeting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we are the gambit

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the au: coffee shop square on our trope bingo card.

For all intents and purposes, Erik is and always will be a loner. He’s misanthropic to a fault, and he likes that about himself.

His only friend - aside from those trivial friendships born from the follies of youth - is his online chess partner, XGene. How he’s managed to keep a friendship going for five years now, Erik has no idea, but he can’t complain about this one, not at all.

XGene is witty, though his comments are often riddled with horrible puns, and he frequently flirts like there is no tomorrow. Oddly enough, Erik’s come to understand that he actually likes that about XGene. Probably because Erik isn’t good with people - see all of his youth - but with XGene, it’s all different.

With this friend he’s never seen in real life, Erik finds it possible to open up about himself to a degree that he hadn’t known existed.

So now, after so many years and so many games of chess that he’s lost count - and Erik is good at remembering things that he’s interested in - he’s ready to take the plunge.

At the start of their next game, Erik reads what XGene has said about his day, and then interrupts with: “So why don’t we meet?”

“What?” XGene asks.

“We should meet, in person. We already talk about everything under the sun.”

The screen stares back at him for a minute before XGene replies. “Sure. Sometime soon? This weekend or something?”

“That’ll be perfect. It’s probably better if we take this off game, so here’s my email address: mastersmagnets AT gmail.”

“Great! I look forward to seeing you,” XGene says, and then he makes a move that leaves Erik boggling a little because how can he still have any tricks up his sleeve after all this time?

Still, he feels pretty good about the whole thing, even when he eventually gets his ass handed to him on a plate. They don’t really have much of a conversation to speak of as they play again, but it’s enough that he’s taken that particular plunge, and asked XGene out.

-

Once the game is finished and he’s sure that MastersMagnets has logged out, Charles very, very carefully moves his laptop to safety on the cushions before him. He does the same for everything else that’s pinning him down to his recliner: the oversized mug of stone-cold tea in its holder; the cat whose rusty purring turns into a disgruntled little sigh when he taps it on its rump to make it move away.

When he can stand, he steps deliberately away from his recliner, heedless of falling blankets and pillows and notebooks and pens - and then he freaks the fuck out.

Quietly, of course, very quietly, because there are people sleeping in the flats around him and the walls are criminally thin in this building, so much so that he knows far too much about his neighbors and they about him, because they can all hear each other much too clearly. Sure, they only know that he listens to a hodgepodge of music from all genres and all decades and, occasionally, in languages that no one else in the place can understand.

But freak out he does because he’s only been working himself up to asking his chess partner for an in-the-flesh meet-up for the last few weeks.

Talk about things that were long overdue, and talk about bad timing - “Criminally bad, just despicable,” Charles mutters to himself as he tiptoes a circle into his already worn rug. If anyone asks him what he’s doing, he’s going to say the heater’s broken down again and he’s moving around to keep from freezing - but the truth is, he’s beside himself with a strange sort of relief and a strange sort of nervousness, the one feeding upon the other and growing and prickling.

Charles is not good with people, and he knows it: there are only a handful of people on the entire _planet_ who can tolerate his company, and that only in carefully controlled doses. His sister spends a lot of time traveling the world and taking photos of interesting things and people and buildings; his childhood friends include a soldier who gets called in on covert operations far too often for anyone’s comfort and a super-genius jet-setter engineer who is also running a global business - _and_ the sensible lady who mother-hens them all, and who normally conducts all of her relationships at an arm’s length [up to and including her husband].

“Now what?” he asks the ceiling, asks the floor, asks his toes in their thick woolen unfashionable socks, and asks the cat as it gives him a dirty look and slinks off toward his little cabinet of a kitchen.

As he looks around he catches sight of his calendar, and a red circle around a number that he most definitely didn’t draw. He doesn’t exactly need any help remembering his own birthday, does he?

Resolve cools in him, suddenly, drowns out the clamor of his conflicted emotions, and before he can change his mind he snatches up his phone and fires off a question to MastersMagnets.

And then he flees into his room and hides under the blankets until he falls into an uneasy sleep.

He can still see his own message behind his closed eyelids:

_Alternatively: We can meet up on my birthday, a week and a half from now. I’ll buy you lunch?_

-

"FUCK SHIT FUCK SHIT FUCKITY FUCK FUCK FUCK!" Erik says all in one breath as he rereads the message on his phone for the fifteenth time in the last five minutes.

He takes a plunge like asking XGene out, and now that plunge has turned into - a birthday celebration? Well, what is his fucking luck?

He looks around his apartment and swears that his twin fish are giving him the evil eye, as they always do, but he dismisses their little eyes following him and thinks about whether this might be the sort of emergency that requires Tasha or Bruce? Bruce has the more insane hours and he’s usually the guy who calms Erik down in his fits of rage - even if Bruce is barely more than just a guy that Erik knows from work, just like Tasha.

Erik doesn’t remember how he manages to find Bruce’s number in his own mental haze, but his phone is in his hand and there’s ringing coming down the speaker and so he doesn’t question it.

“What is it this time, man?” Bruce asks in between the sounds of what seem to be miniature explosions.

Erik hesitates, and then all the words come rushing out, faster than he thinks should be possible or even intelligible. “You know that guy I play chess with? Well, I just asked him out and he said that his birthday’s in a week and half and we should meet then.”

“Uh, you did _what_?” Bruce says.

“Yeah, I know. I asked him out.”

“Actually, I’m just impressed that you know someone else besides Tasha and me.”

Erik sighs. “Very funny. But did I just walk into a minefield, or what?”

There’s no sound on Bruce’s end, which makes Erik think that his coworker might just be contemplating the possibilities. “I give you a fifteen percent chance of landmines, but in all honesty, that’s the least of your worries.”

“What should I worry about then?” Erik tries to resist the urge to pace, or shift his weight from foot to foot.

“Where this meeting is taking place, and if there are any other expectations? You know, a first time on a birthday’s really forward, especially for you.”

“I would _not_ sleep with him on his birthday,” Erik says with as much dignity as he can muster.

“You sure? I know how long it’s been since you’ve gotten laid.”

“Shut it, no! I will not sleep with a guy I’m just meeting, face to face, for the first time. Not even if it’s his birthday.”

“Then that takes the landmines down to maybe ten percent, but only if you make sure he knows you’re not going to put the moves on him. Or, well, that move.”

“Fine, fine. I’ll tell him now, so he can still pull out if he wants to.” Bruce snorts. Erik almost coughs in his hurry to get the next words out. “Oh shit! Mind out of the gutter, man!”

“Not gonna happen, but good luck with that.”

-

“Happy birthday, you,” Charles mutters when he finally musters up the courage to look at himself in the mirror, one and a half weeks after MastersMagnets’ surprising invitation and equally surprising follow-up email.

He doesn’t have a choice with the t-shirt, really, he does have to wear the coffee shop’s logo when he shows up at the coffee shop. At least it’s not anything silly, or written in green or red or something: it’s plain white Courier font over the heart, and all it says is Blackbird.

[Tony and Steve had encouraged him to name the place something a little bit more memorable than that. Charles had stood his ground for three whole weeks, until Emma could come back and tell him that she approved of his choice. So the place that he’s part owner of is called Blackbird Brews and that is it.]

He fills up the cat’s bowls with dry kibble and a new supply of warm water - Hank just flicks an irate tail at him and scrabbles clumsily up to the windowsill, slinking out into the wide wild world. “Come back,” Charles calls after him, half-heartedly, and then he plucks at the collar and cuffs of his button-down, looks down ruefully at the turned-up hems on his least-creased dark denims, and stomps into his boots and makes his way downtown.

He slips into the kitchen with all the stealth he can muster - he’s had practice and he’s pretty good at it - but Moira and the others intercept him anyway, everyone humming the birthday song at him.

“I’d rather you didn’t,” he says, shuffling and looking at his feet uncomfortably.

“Awww,” Sean sighs, and he walks out, snagging the eraser from the small chalk-basket next to the door out into the actual cafe area. “Kitty worked so hard on writing a birthday greeting on the blackboards, too.”

“Thank - thank you,” Charles says with a pinched smile. “I think I might have appreciated it some other time. Really. It’s - I’m just on the edge today, okay?”

“You should stay here in the back then,” Ororo offers.

“I’ll be fine out front if I don’t talk to anyone. At least, not until the person I’m meeting shows up.”

“We will ask you for details later on, all right? Also, here’s your mail. There’re cards for you in there, from Raven and from Steve. No idea where Tony’s is.”

“Late, as usual,” Moira says. “The only thing he’s prompt about is the only reason why we let him in here.”

“I thought I paid your salaries,” Charles says, mildly.

“Happy birthday,” Kitty says. Her hug is brief, but Charles appreciates both her emotion and the brevity of it.

“Thank you. One round of coffee for everyone at break time,” Charles says.

And really, it’s not so bad, when he just reads the order tickets and fills them: he’s gotten used to the coffee thing, pouring syrup and frothing milk and juggling multiple shots of espresso - he can struggle more easily for his equilibrium, and just have enough time to smile harriedly at customers whom he sort of recognizes.

At least, that’s the case until Sean whistles quietly, barely audible over the obnoxious jangle of the bells hung over the entrance. “That is one beat-up Metallica shirt,” he says as he drops to his knees to root in the pastry display, “that guy can’t have been alive at the time they were doing those tours!”

“Like you were?” Kitty snarks.

If anyone else responds or makes a comment, Charles doesn’t hear it. His hands are stock-still where they’ve been preparing a masala chai latte for one of the other customers; thankfully he’s not in danger of getting scalded.

He’s only in danger of being overwhelmed, because he’d been promised a signal, and he’s just received it: _I’ll be wearing an old rock band t-shirt. Maybe Metallica, maybe Iron Maiden, I haven’t decided yet._

He has to find the courage to turn around and say hello, but he’s paralyzed because he doesn’t know what to expect, doesn’t know who he’s meeting.

“Nice shirt, says my friend over there,” Moira says. “What’re you having?”

-

His hands are the only part of him that feel warm right now - as well they should, since they’re the only reason why he’s managing to hang on to his extremely dark roast brew bar coffee - and Erik immediately regrets not throwing on his leather jacket over the Metallica shirt.

Charles’s eyes aren’t quite meeting Erik’s and that’s making him feel more self-conscious than he’d been in the last three days. “So,” he starts and hopes that in the relative silence of the back alley, they can share a moment.

“Bugger! I’m rubbish at this, I’m so sorry,” Charles says when the silence stretches out between them for far longer than should be necessary.

“Me too, so I don’t know why I thought this was a good idea,” Erik responds.

“Well, clearly we have no problem talking as we’re playing, but I don’t know if this is all bad. I’d been thinking of asking the same thing before you did.”

Erik’s cheeks threaten to blush at Charles’ admission. “Sorry I beat you, then.”

“No, I don’t think you are. I’m still winning in the long run.”

“For now,” Erik says with a sly smile. “I’m up three pieces currently.”

“I assure you, not for long.”

“We’ll see.” Erik wants to put his cup down, the coffee long since cold now in the chill of the day, but he’s not sure if that’s rude or not. When the silence returns, Erik finally decides to drop the cup and look back at Charles.

“So it’s your birthday, right?” Erik asks.

“Yes, yes it is. But like I said, you don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to get me anything. The staff’s already gotten me a pile of cards.”

“Well, this isn’t a card, but I think it’s the best I can do today.” Erik moves just a bit closer to Charles and then carefully wraps Charles’s left hand in his right. He threads their fingers together and waits, content to let their joined hands speak for him.

He’s never been good with words, but right now, he feels confident about what his gestures can telegraph instead.

-

“I can’t believe it’s still snowing at the end of bloody _March_ ,” Charles grouses once they’ve managed to extricate themselves from the depths of Heathrow. He doesn’t often make the trip to London any more, because of old bones that crave warmth, but Raven’s asked him and Erik to come, and so they’re here.

“Snow on your birthday, how about that,” Erik says, and just as if he’s a child he tips his head back a little so he can catch snowflakes on his tongue.

“You don’t even know where that’s been.”

“Says the man who walks in the rains of New York City _without an umbrella_.”

Charles rolls his eyes and busies himself with looking around for someone to help them call a cab.

As he stands there he feels a tug on his glove, and he keeps looking ahead, though he’s unable to stop smiling. He knows what Erik’s up to; he’s only been doing this for the last ten years, and Charles can’t complain, really, because Erik is warm and full of affection despite also being full of grumbles and the occasional sharp-edged cynicism that cuts even through Charles’s own defenses.

He lets Erik pry off his glove so he can hold Charles’s hand, and he squeezes back, and holds on to his heart.


End file.
